"We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge" 
                                                       - John Naisbitt

• Replication Crisis: Why does much of the work in SBE sciences not replicate?
  • Procedural training in statistics instead of statistical reasoning
  • Over-reliance on NHST
  • Lack of strong theory

• Qualitative Methods: “Credibility Crisis”:
  • How to deal with Bias
  • Scope/Generalizability
  • Empirical vs. Advocacy/Sociopolitical (“is” vs. “ought”)

• Much preoccupation with Qaunt vs. Qual debate

• The problem is not methodological, but is “user error”
• We tend to use the wrong methods, whether quantitative or qualitative, to answer important questions.
• Why?
  • Most applied researchers only know basic methods
  • Most applied researchers don’t do experiments so don’t think causally
  • SBE researchers haven’t fully embraced complexity

• Identifying problems -> Solving problems
  • This misses a critical step: Understanding the causes of the problem

• Complex Systems:
  • nonlinear
  • self-organizing
  • emergence
  • hierarchical
  • heterogeneous agents

• The problems that face society involve complex systems
  • Generally: global warming, pandemics, etc.
  • Education: disparities, dropout, STEM participation

• Complex problems have complex causes (nonlinear multi-causal, hierarchical)

• … and, therefore, require complex solutions

"We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge" 
                                                       - John Naisbitt

• To provide the Resources and Skills foundational to Computation, Theory, and Experimentation needed to turn data and theory into knowledge.